Okay, well after several months without a group to play with I've managed to put together a fourth edition group at college. I'm a bit rusty when it comes to GMing and I'm hoping to get some feedback from the Dumpshock community regarding my campaign and possible story elements. None of my runners visit Dumpshock, so there should be no issue with discussing it freely here.

First things first is the team. Most of the team has yet to put together their characters, but one of my players just got done making a Technomancer. In an attempt to un-gimp the Technomancer I reduced the BP cost for Complex Forms so he could get a decent stock of rating six forms, and I'm using a few optional rules from Unwired to give Technomancers a bit of a edge. I might have gone a tad overboard, but this is his first game and first character, so I don't much expect it will come back to bite me in the ass. If you guys have any other suggestions let me know and I'll try to incorporate them.

As for the campaign itself, I'm grabbing an old 3rd edition book called "First Run" and taking the Supernova run out of it. In which the team does an spectacularly easy B&E job to steal a briefcase, and it all goes wrong towards the end involving a cyberzombie and some Renraku Red Samurai. This is a thrilling run, and for a small non-combat team of newbies it's fairly difficult. I've GMed this game at least once for every new group I've had. In the long run, I'm probably going to do something involving cyberzombies and getting in too deep, and that's where I need your guys help.

I really want a sort of large scale threat. There will be a lot on the international corporate-underworld scale, but I want the runners main focus in the last few sessions (assuming we all make it that far) to be that it's THEIR ass on the line. If they end up "saving the world" (or the corporate world, to be more specific) it wont necessarily be because that was their goal. The first bit will probably be normal runs any Shadowrunner team would get involved in, leading in to some investigation and then a classic case of knowing too much. I'm really not afraid of using a few cliches in this. The campaign probably wont be long, this is their first Shadowrun and no doubt we may all be willing to start over after we get a good handle on it.

My main issue is, of course, putting them in a situation where they can't just cut and run. It'd be a fairly dull end to my campaign if they erase their identities and live out their days hiding in a shed someone in the wildlife of another country. I want to at least make it hard for them to weasel out of the situation if they decide to take the "get the hell out of dodge" approach. And of course, there's always the "everybody dies" ending. Lol.


I realize I have very little ready, I'm just brainstorming right now.

You can always go old school and start the campaign at an earlier date.

I find it easier using the old technologies with the SR4 system. Keep the really weird nanotech and genetech for SOTA plot devices.

Have your Technomancer be a part of the events of System Shock in some way and then involve the whole team in Emergence.

I'd go for a not-too-magical enemy for the corporations. Something vast, powerful, threatening, and believable. The project of a brilliant, insane idealist. The vast anti-corporate conspiracy, filled with radical environmentalists, anarchists, communists and what-have-you, all shepherded towards some big plot to bring down the reign of corporate fascism, no matter how many bystanders have to be sacrificed to make it happen.

You'd want the players to understand, even sometimes sympathize with the Enemy, knowing that the corporations they protect are just as bad. But still it should show that there are people who go to far for a good cause.

And you can have fun playing on the (stereotypically) insane fear of communism Americans have.

Runners are hired to do job X. Runners are ambushed at the end of Job X. (They are new and expendable).

Turns out they know too much about the job/client/situation and their employer wants everything tied off nice and clean.

Runners have to investigate what it is they precisely know too much about.

Personally, I hate world saving adventures (yes, I have run them). I like adventures that have a big impact but can be close to home and closer to street level - and honestly, I think players prefer them too IMHO.

- J.

Could always weave in the story from the Dark Angel TV show (escaped modified human/animal hybrids), weave it into Surge, add a dash of implication that this is the origin of metahumanity (which is of course complete crap), and have at.

I always canvas my players before I come up with the metaplot. In my current group, I do have a player that likes the large, epic story and some who like the smaller-scale stuff.

PCs have discovered a megacorp has develoepd a prototype version of the stirrup interface, designed to work on humans?

- J.

Well, I didn't mean it to be literally world saving. I just want it to have that sort of undertone, but I most certainly want them to end up prioritizing their survival.

I've never actually run one of those. The closest thing I had was in one of our campaigns, run by another GM, the main villain was opening some magical rift that was supposed to do some major shit, and really mess up the world's magic. His motivation was his own weird cult religion thing where magic users were above mundanes, so he wanted to split the two from each other. It was sort of trippy towards the end.

The easiest way I know of to do what you want to do is to use the players as pawns early on.

-- Phase 1.) Have them take a series of runs (interspersed with inane/unrelated jobs) where they lay the ground work for some BBEG's master plan for world domination (or a terrorist attack, or whatever).
-- Phase 2.) About mid-campaign BBEG decides they know too much and either sends them on a suicide mission or double crosses them at the end of a mission.
-- Phase 3.) The following session should be a scramble as the teams contacts dry up / disappear / turn up dead. They have to go to ground and figure out whats going on. Eventually, through leg work, investigation or self directed runs they figure out BBEG's plot.
-- Phase 4.) The runners have to stop BBEG's plan for two reasons: 1.) they will be implicated in the plot if it succeeds (due to their role in the early stages) and 2.) they want revenge.

If you want to discourage cut-and-run mentality, stress upon your players the oppressive nature of being SINless. They don't live in [City X] by choice; they're trapped there. Lots of poor people would leave for greener pastures if they could, but its damn near impossible to cross a border without a SIN or the aid of a human trafficking smuggler and ridiculously expensive either way. If they try to ditch town, have their early evolvement in the evil plot hit the media (can't be seen in an airport while there's a man hunt underway) and if they hire a smuggler have him turn them in for a reward.

Also, encourage the players to think about connections. Even the most stone-cold professional runner has friends and family. Perhaps their loved ones are potential targets of the big bad plot, or are attacked/kidnapped/killed during phase 3. If you leave them behind they're dead, but taking them with you increases the difficulty of escaping exponentially.

Good Luck!
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